13
ELLIE
I don’t plan to find Colby awake. He’s always been such a heavy and immediate sleeper. On movie nights, he usually only makes it ten minutes into the film before he’s off into the land of nod.
But as I open Colby’s door, the light on his nightstand is still on, and he’s lying on top of his comforter. As our eyes meet across the room, he shifts, shocked. His gaze rakes over my barely clad body, but I don’t see rejection there. I see heat and hunger. I see the moment his resistance seems to slide away like snow down the side of a mountain.
I feel the same way.
Too much time has passed. Too much longing has built up, and the fight to resist all these feelings – focusing on the bad in my stepbrothers and never the good - has gone on too long.
Micky dared me, and so I’m here.
“Ellie.” Colby’s voice is deeper than usual, with a huskiness that tickles the skin on the inside of my thighs.
I don’t say anything because I know the power of words. They can drive action, but they can also halt it. If I let him talk, I know Colby could destroy this precious moment with his seriousness and desperate need to be responsible.
The tent in his boxers tells me all that I need to know. He wants me. I’ve felt that buried need in him for so long. I’ve felt his fight to stay an appropriate distance from me, as though our parents’ marrying has made us real siblings, not just unrelated people who live under the same roof.
He’s tried his best to be a big brother, stifling me at every turn, building resentment as well as lust. But I understand him now. And I understand myself.
It’s time for me to take what I need. It’s time for Colby to face up to the fact that he wants me too.
Dornan’s words slide into my mind. These years of our lives are supposed to be about fun. They’re supposed to be about us taking risks. They are years I don’t want to waste on relationships with men who do nothing for me, experiencing sex that makes me want to write shopping lists in my head rather than cry out with ecstasy.
What we have together is too good to suppress.
And I know I’m being greedy. I know that wanting all three of my stepbrothers is fucked up. But choosing between them would be worse. Driving a wedge between them would be the most selfish thing I could do. At least this way, we’re all invested in the same secret. And at least this way, I don’t have to compartmentalize my heart.
In silence, I close the door and walk towards Colby. He shifts on the bed, pushing to sit straighter against the headboard. His fists are balled, and his shoulders are bunched tight as though he’s braced to escape, but he doesn’t move as I straddle his lap. He doesn’t push me away as I cup his stubbly cheeks with my palms.
His eyelids droop as I use my thumbs to stroke the soft skin beneath his eyes, and the breath he releases feels like he’s been holding it in for an eon. “What are you doing?” he groans, his tone tortured and gruff.
“What we should have done a long time ago,” I whisper.
I expect to lead Colby forward step by step, to chip at his resistance. But what happens is very different. In a flash, his hands grip my wrists, and before I take a breath, I’m on my back, restrained against the mattress with Colby’s huge form looming over me.
“Is this what you did to Micky last night?” he asks.
When I nod, Colby looks away, focusing on the corner of his room as his glistening chest rises and falls. His hands are tight around my wrists, and I still can’t tell if it’s because he doesn’t want me to touch him because he sees this as wrong or because it’s what he gets off on.
“You picked him first because he’s a soft touch, didn’t you? You knew he wouldn’t have the heart to say no.”
For a second, I’m stunned, and then I smile. “You want there to be a reason that I didn’t come to you first, don’t you? You’re jealous.” Colby makes a low growl in his throat, and I know I’m right. For all the walls he erects and the masks he wears, he is so easy to read. “I went to Micky first because he’s the one who went the furthest with me in the closet. It seemed easiest to take the first step with him.”
The way Colby looks down at me with his assessing green eyes tells me the truth was a good answer. “And now you’re ready to take a step with me?” His hips lower against mine, and the thick ridge of his cock rubs against my clit. It’s like punctuation to his question.
“Can you just kiss me, Colby? For fuck’s sake!”
“Maybe I can,” he says, with a twinkle in his eyes that sends heat rushing between my thighs. I raise my hips, searching for more pressure, but he pulls back just enough that I’m left wanting.
“Kiss me, or get the fuck off me,” I huff.
Dipping lower, he grazes the tip of my nose with his and hovers his lips so close to mine that I can feel his warmth without us touching. The buzz of electricity between us is crazy. I want to bite him, scratch him, and slap him for being so stubborn and in control. I want to lash out because he makes me feel crazy, and I don’t want to vibrate with need for someone who is so pigheaded. But I hold myself in check, suspecting that he needs this messed up mental foreplay before he gives in to what we both know he wants.
He needs to flip the narrative. I came to him, but he’s now the one in control. He’ll make me bend to his will. He’ll make this hard for me and easy, too.
Because as much as I rebel against Colby, I want to melt in his arms. I want him to coax me into doing new and terribly amazing things. I want him to push my boundaries while I lay back and pretend not to like any of it.
I want to submit to him, but only in bed.
His tongue flicks the underside of my top lip, and I jump at the incredible feeling.
“You’re not ready to be in my bed,” he says. “You’re not ready to give every ounce of your will over to me, are you?”
If he could read my mind, he’d know the truth, but thatwould take the fun out of this for Colby. He wants me to be resistant so he can be dominant. I’ve never been with a man like him before; so complex and challenging.
“Nothing worth having comes easy,” I say, raising my eyebrows.
Colby folds his lips like he’s trying to suppress his amusement. “No one could ever describe you as easy, Ellie.”
I struggle against his grip, and the flash of his eyes tells me exactly what I want to know. He likes the resistance. He wants to tame me and claim me. I’m ashamed to admit that the thought makes me hot and soaked between my thighs.
I remember what he said in Professor Anderson’s lecture about Micky not being the only one who’s skilled with his tongue. Will I get to find out what Colby can do?
“Have you ever been tied up?” Colby whispers, his eyes already flitting around the room for an available restraint.
“No.” I struggle again, and this time, Colby lets me go.
“Would you like to be?”
The way he looks in the low light sends a shiver of anticipation up my spine and over my scalp. There’s so much power coiled in his body. His massive bicep is tight under his weight, pecs rounded and smooth, and abs rippled like a ladder to the promised land. I can’t stop my eyes from drifting over everything, lower and lower. When I glance up, half dazed, he’s smirking. “If I say yes, doesn’t that make this less fun for you?” I ask.
“I want to know that you’re okay and not just playing along because it’s something I want.” As a second thought, his hand drifts between my legs, and his fingers probe. When he discovers the aroused mess down there, a whoosh of breath passes through his lips. “Oh yeah. You want it.”
“Do you have to be such an ass about everything?” I say indignantly.
“Just bouncing off your energy, baby.”
Colby slides from the bed and disappears into his closet, returning with a black tie that he wore at his great uncle’s funeral and a foil packet.
Before I can object, he snags my wrists together, binds them, and secures them to the headboard. I tug against the restraint, testing, while Colby bites his bottom lip at the sight of me. The loss of control is even better than I imagined it would be. Colby drops his head to one side, clicking his neck, and fuck if it doesn’t get me hot. What more could a girl want than a sexy, athletic man limbering up to give her a good time?
He doesn’t rush to get on the bed, though, and I’m eager for him to get started. “Now you’ve got me all tied up; what are you going to do with me?” I whisper meekly, slipping into a submissiveness that I didn’t know lurked in the shadows of my psyche.
“Whatever the fuck I like,” he growls.
As if to illustrate the point, he flips me over until I’m on my front, the tie twisting on my wrists, and tugs me until I’m on my hands and knees. Behind me, his hands trail my back and my thighs, fingers grazing the skin of my ass in rhythmic passes, over and over, closer and closer until they touch my taint.
“Now, if our parents weren’t in the next room, I’d be slapping this ass.”
“Why?” I whisper, pulling my knees closer as though that will make a difference to Colby’s access to my body right now.
“Because you’re a bad girl, aren’t you, Ellie? A bad girl who wanders the hallways and creeps into her stepbrother’s room in the middle of the night looking for sex. And it’s not only me, is it? You want Micky and Sebastian too. You want all of us to make you come, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I gasp shamelessly as his thumb brushes my entrance.
“You liked it when all three of us were playing with this body, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” I say again, this time weakly, the admission pulsing heat through me.
“You want all of us to fuck you at the same time, don’t you?”
I don’t answer his question because admitting it is too shameful. And I don’t need to admit it because he knows. They all know. They knew from the moment I shuddered and came in that closet without even realizing it was them surrounding me.
“Don’t you?” he says, this time more firmly. Thick fingers push inside me, and I grunt my agreement. As he pulls them out and pushes back in, slick noises fill the air.
“You’re so ready for me,” he says, knocking my knees open with his so that he can move behind me. A foil wrapper is torn, and a condom is rolled on. There’s no finesse with Colby, just brute force as he notches his big cock at my entrance and pushes forward.
Oh god, the stretching feels so good. Balancing on my tied wrists, I close my eyes and breathe deeply, willing my body to relax and accommodate every huge inch he has to give. And he has many, many inches.
Part of me is grateful that Micky went first, letting me get used to just how big the Townsend triplets are. Colby impatiently grips my hips and rocks forward, deeper and deeper, until he bottoms out. “Fuck, you’re so tight,” he hisses, digging his fingers into the flesh of my ass, holding still as he gets used to the clasp of my pussy. Here I was, thinking that this is a challenge for me, but it’s as much of a challenge for him. Maybe more. Colby has to restrain himself enough to make this good for me. The man is a perfectionist at life. There is no way he will be anything less than a perfectionist in bed. All I have to do is stay in this position unless, of course, he wants to flip me back over or bend me into some other contortionist state. I’m at his mercy, after all.
“You’re so big,” I moan because I know how men love to hear it, even if they know.
“Yeah? Do you like it big? Do you like me stretching out this sweet pink pussy? You like me buried up to your navel, Ellie? Not such a sweet little stepsister, after all.”
“Oh, I’m sweet,” I say. “Micky will tell you just how sweet I am.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I’ll get a taste,” Colby says, starting to move. He rocks his hips maddeningly slowly, and if I could watch him, I bet I’d see his eyes fixed on where our bodies join. I bet he loves the sight of me stretched around him. I’d put good money on the fact that he relishes the idea of splitting me open, of forcing my body to accommodate him. Of bending me to his will.
I love it too.
“Fuck, Colby,” I gasp as his finger finds my clit and taps. I’m so sensitive there, but there’s no way I can stop him from doing anything. I’m totally in his control.
“Yes, Ellie. You want more?” He rubs my clit this time, incredibly slowly, and I try to shift my legs, but he pins me in place, working me into a mindless puddle of goo.
“More.” I shudder, already feeling as though I’m approaching the precipice, already anticipating the tumble into oblivion. For someone who’s only had three previous orgasms, all at the hands of Micky, I’m getting remarkably good at achieving them.
Or, I should say, the Townsend brothers are remarkably good at giving them.
“Did you come with Micky’s cock in your pussy?” Colby asks me.
“Yes,” I gasp.
“Shame,” Colby soothes, running his hand down the length of my spine and pushing so that I arch my back and raise my ass. “I would’ve liked to be the first to feel this pussy clamp down on my cock.”
“Mmmmm,” I moan as he thrusts faster, still stroking, stroking, stroking.
I close my eyes, remembering the urgency of his cock in the closet, the way he held me tightly, the way he forced me to hold his dick and squeeze. I recall his powerful body, the golden rings in his green eyes, and the fierce way he approaches everything in his life. I think about how much he lit up when we worked together, and he saw my abilities.
Colby might be a bossy, moody asshole, but he’s a good man. A hard-working man.
A sexy, controlling brute of a man.
And when it happens, when I start to come, I have to flop forward onto the bed. There’s no strength left to support me. All of it has pulsed through me in a rush. Like a fire igniting too much fuel, I blaze hot and burn in wave after wave of pleasure.
I’m expecting Colby to carry on until he comes too, but he pulls out and flips me back over, settling between my legs to lick up my arousal like a ravenous dog at a bowl. My legs are jello, my heart a wild drum pounding out a fierce beat. Sweat beads on my top lip, but I have to lick it away because my hands are still fixed tightly over my head. He winds me up like an automaton with his tongue, matching his brother’s skill, but he doesn’t let me come again. He teases me to the brink of insanity and smiles against my trembling flesh when he stops just before.
When Colby’s had his fun and eaten his fill, he spreads my pussy lips wide with his thumbs and pushes his thick cock back inside me. This time, I watch the undulations of his hips and the rippling of his abs as he works and works. I salivate at the sweat tricking between his rounded pecs and wish I could move so I could lick the salt from his skin. Our eyes meet, and Colby smirks, so damned pleased with himself and me. I can see the happiness in his expression, the relief, as though months of holding himself in a certain posture are now over, and he’s free to relax.
This is the Colby that I saw glimpses of but was never sure really existed.
This is the Colby who can break me open, physically and emotionally.
He licks his thumb so lasciviously that I blush and slicks it over my clit. It’s too much but, at the same time, not enough. But Colby knows. He seems to know what to do, stroking around but not making direct contact. Working me until I’m so close again that lights flicker behind my eyelids, and my body arches hungrily toward him.
Twice?
Is it really going to happen twice?
Of course, it is. I don’t know how I ever doubted. Colby is competitive to a fault.
This time we come together, me with my neck arched and eyes so tightly closed that my eyelids hurt, Colby gripping my thighs so viciously it’s as though he’s fearful of floating away and never returning.
He flops forward, bracing over me on one arm, his body heaving with each breath, sweat dripping and cooling between my breasts. Our eyes meet, and in his, I see the same expression as when old friends bump into each other unexpectedly after many years. It’s like I’m familiar but also a surprise.
“Oh god. I’ve wanted to do that for too fucking long,” he says.
“And you pretended all this time to hate my guts.”
He shakes his head. “It’s you who hates our guts. Well, mine mostly.”
I shrug because explaining our fractious relationship over the past few years would open wounds I’d rather leave bandaged. Getting into my resentment and jealousy of their interactions with my mom would make me sound pathetic and destroy the moment. And admitting I’m jealous of them for having a father who sticks to them like glue would be even worse.
“I think the fact that I’m half naked and tied to your bed speaks a different story.”
His hands reach out to loosen the tie, and I bring my arms down, grateful to have some movement in them again. When he sees the red marks that cuff each of my wrists, he brings one to his lips and kisses it softly. It’s the gentlest gesture I’ve ever seen Colby make.
“You know you haven’t kissed me yet.”
“I haven’t?” He cocks his head to one side.
“You almost did the night we were working on our presentation.”
“I wanted to.” The admission comes with a shoulder shrug. “I could have killed Micky and Seb…but maybe it was for the best.”
“How come?”
“Kissing is different from fucking?” He shrugs again. “I know how to make you come using my body. I’m good at that part, but I don’t know what you want from this, Ellie. Sex is one thing, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, but kissing is relationship territory. Kissing is about connection. Is that what you want from me? From my brothers?”
Now there’s a question I never thought I’d hear from Colby.
The man I thought was made of steel is holding back because he doesn’t want to misunderstand my intentions. Inadvertently, he’s shown me a chink in his armor, a vulnerability I would never have expected.
“I don’t know,” I admit, remembering last night and how sweetly Micky teased my lips with his. It was so easy for him to slip into affection as well as pleasure, but nothing’s easy with Colby.
“Well, when you do know, we can talk. Until then…”
He rolls onto his back and rests his head on his open palms. I turn to look at him and let my fingers trail his tan skin stretched tightly over muscle. Now that I’m free to touch him, I’m not going to waste the opportunity, especially because this is going to be the only time.
“I wasn’t going to come to your room,” I say.
His eyes dart to mine, surprised at my admission. “So, why did you?”
“Because Micky dared me.”
“Dared you?”
“It sounds stupid.”
Colby grabs my wrist and holds it against the center of his chest, where his heart beats with a determined thud. “Explain.”
When I shake my head, embarrassed, he stares at me with narrowed eyes.
“You can’t drop that and not explain what you mean, Ellie.”
“I’m not good at being impetuous,” I admit in a rush. “I’m not good at taking risks. Before my dad left, he’d dare me to do things I was too scared to do, you know, like climb to the top of the climbing frame or dive into the swimming pool. When I wouldn’t take the dare, he’d call me a coward or a chicken. He’d make clucking noises.”
“That doesn’t sound kind,” Colby says seriously. He looks away, lacing our fingers together. It’s a sweet enough gesture to inspire me to continue.
“It wasn’t.” I sigh as the sad knot tied tightly inside me loosens just a little. “When he left, doing anything I was dared to became a way of me saying ‘fuck you’ to my dad. It’s stupid because he doesn’t know and won’t ever know, and probably more stupid because I’m still too much of a coward to do crazy things without a dare.”
“You’re not a coward, Ellie,” he tells me, squeezing my hand. I know he’s trying to be kind, but it doesn’t help. If anything, his kindness makes me feel worse about myself and what I’m doing.
“I’m a coward through and through,” I say. When Colby tries to tell me again, I put up my hand, and he blinks slowly in defeat.
“So Micky knew this?” he says after a beat.
I told him that Gabriella dared me to take a chance with one of you guys. “
“So you picked Micky first because he’d already made you come…you thought he’d be a sure thing.”
“Yeah.” I blush hard, realizing how ridiculous all of this is, but needing to be honest. “And when he asked me why I went to him, and I told him, he dared me to come to you.”
“Shit.” Colby shakes his head. “So now what? You want me to dare you to go to Sebastian’s room tomorrow night?”
I shrug. “Dares aren’t about what I want,” I say. “That’s not how this works. It’s about what you want me to do. I know it sounds fucked up. I don’t get myself half the time.”
He shifts, using his elbow to prop his head in his hand. There’s a gentleness in his expression as he gazes down at me. It makes me feel fragile and a whole lot broken. His fingers are tentative when they play with my hair, so unlike Colby’s usual way of being. “We’re all a bundle of complexities, Ellie. You’re not alone.”
“I wish I had more guts. I wish I didn’t always need external motivation to take the big steps in life.”
“At least you’re willing to take risks and stretch yourself. External motivation aside, it’s still brave as fuck to do what you did.”
“You mean, in case you said no?”
“Rejection is always a possibility.”
“You’ve been looking at me like you want to swallow me whole for years,” I say. “The risk was negligible.”
“Cocky, much!” Colby smiles and pinches my cheek.
“Realistic, more like.”
“I dare you to go fuck my brother tomorrow,” Colby whispers. “If you leave Sebastian out, his ego will never recover.”
“Ah. Such a nice brother,” I laugh. “Looking out for your triplet’s mental health.”
“Looking out for my mental health, Ellie. I’d never hear the end of Sebastian’s wailing.”
I raise my head so that I’m close to Colby’s ear. “You think you can just pass me around?”
Colby licks his lips and closes his eyes. If we were all together, I could just imagine him sitting in the corner and watching the scene he’d be directing. He likes that thought too. Being in control of who I fuck and when.
“I know you’d never do anything you didn’t really want to, sweet Ellie, with a bitter bite.” Leaning in, Colby nuzzles my cheek with his nose like a lazy cat showing its owner affection. Then he does something that steels the breath from my lungs. He presses a soft kiss to the corner of my mouth, lingering as though it feels too good to withdraw from.
It does. It really does.
I wrap my arm around his big chest and tug, wanting to feel his weight on me. Needing him to kiss me longer and deeper, but Colby doesn’t budge.
When he pulls back, he folds in his lips, sneaking a taste of me, and then he’s up and off the bed, pinching the condom to discard it in his wastepaper basket. I get a glorious view of his muscular back tapering into his perfectly rounded ass. Oh god. That ass is enough to make me want to go again, even though I’m shattered and sore.
I guess it means tonight is over. And it’s fine because I got what I came for and more.
Two delicious orgasms, an insight into my dominant, control-freak stepbrother, and another dare that can free me from my self-imposed restrictions so that I can do what I really want.
Live and fuck the consequences.
Be another Ellie. A brave girl who isn’t shackled by expectations. Ellie Franklin, who isn’t a timid little girl anymore. Ellie Franklin, who’s never a coward.